CD Review: Lunch with Beardo

Surrealistic Picnic (FDH Records, 2006)

by Jason Broome, January 25, 2007

Do you experiment with DMT or acid? Perhaps you go for the more natural highs of weed and ’shrooms. Or maybe you just like some masochism mixed into your meditation routine. Whatever your psychedelic Kool-Aid of choice, Lunch with Beardo might be a worthy side dish. In case you haven’t fed your head in a while, buy the album and you will find yourself out the door to the local herb man tout de suite. If not to enjoy the music then to just get the hell away from it. Be emotionally prepared, or just schedule your therapy appointment now.

This is noise from five hard-working and creative boys who cut their teeth on punk, hardcore, and prog-metal. Slow that down to 1/10th the RPMs, add a meandering trumpet, nonsensical groaning, tape loops, some minor arpeggios, a Theremin, and other miscellaneous trickery, and you have Lunch with Beardo. This art is anarchy in motion. Don’t question it. You will miss the point.
Lunch with Beardo is a much-needed shot in the arm for the fearfully homogeneous Hudson Valley music scene. Give us experimental noise collage any day over one more chanteuse with an acoustic guitar. Much of the band hails from New Paltz and surrounds such as Warwick and La Grange. Lunch with Beardo plays The Cubbyhole in Poughkeepsie on February 25.
www.lunchwithbeardo.com